Of Gods and Men
by Frostbite Panda
Summary: She turned closer to him impulsively, trying to shield her senses from the stench of defecation and stomach acid. “Mulder… what the hell is this?” X Files/Se7en crossover T for intense and disturbing images. MSR.


**Time Line:** Sometime after Millennium, but before all things.

**Spoilers:** Really only for Millennium in any specific context. There are broad references to the entire series though.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _X Files_, nor _Se7en_. I do not own them, so therefore I do not make money off of them. I'm simply being a huge nerd. So sue me. No wait… please don't.

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** Of Gods and Men**  
_Written By: _Frostbite Panda  
_Edited By:_ November

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**Chapter One: The Gluttonous**

_Servant of God, well done, well hast thou fought_

_The better fight, who single maintain'd_

_Against revolted multitudes the cause _

_Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms;_

_And for the testimony of truth hast borne_

_Universal reproach, far worse to bear_

_Than violence; for this was all thy care _

_To stand approv'd in the sight of God, tough world_

_Judged thee perverse…"_

- Milton,_Paradise Lost_

The smell of decay licked his nostrils with a sickly sweet burn. He heard Scully shudder beside him as little clouds of dust rose under their careful steps. The police had already done their initial investigation and only the chief and a few helpers were left. A stunned silence veiled their words. There was no need for explanation from the chief… for he had none.

The circuits for the lights were dead, but an old TV lay on the floor, blinking light and life onto the flattened couch at the opposite wall of peeling paint. It was the only room in this hovel that seemed even remotely livable.

They picked their way into the dim kitchen, both contorting their faces at the powerful smell and disgusting sight that lay there.

The victim sat at the kitchen table, face buried in a bowl of rancid spaghetti. Scully shined her flashlight on his enormous girth, washing his translucent skin in the white light to illuminate the blue threads of herniated veins around his armpits and neck. She held a hand at her nose, fruitlessly warding off the odor. "Who is calling this a homicide?"

"I am," Mulder replied distractedly as he began his visual search of the room. It was just as grossly kept as the rest of the place it seemed. With every step he heard the rustle of startled cockroaches. He shined a light at the sink, surprised to find no dirty dishes. The window above it had been thrown open, the dingy curtains soaked with the cold city rain. He scanned the shelves, observing tin can upon tin can of cheap spaghetti sauce. He raised his eyebrows. "This guy must've really loved spaghetti."

Scully, no doubt engrossed in studying her next autopsy subject, said nothing. Mulder continued his own scrutiny of the crime scene. The trash can. A plastic bag from a grocery store with two receipts for tomato and meat sauce and spaghetti noodles. The refrigerator. Nothing but some old eggs and some butter. The floor.

Scrapes… deep grooves as if the refrigerator had been pulled out… recently.

"Mulder…" She was using a tone of voice that could not be ignored. He turned to her, seeing that she was crouched beside the man, looking at his hands and feet.

He knelt beside her and saw what had caught her attention.

Zip line was fastened tightly around his wrists and ankles, cutting into the fleshy joints, the fat puckered and red. Stubby fingers splayed in a gesture of pain and struggle.

"Not a murder, Scully?"

She didn't look at him and he stood up, a bucket on the floor at the other end of the table catching his attention.

He threw himself backward as soon as he had caught sight of what was in it, as if it had struck him. "Mulder what is it?"

"A bucket," He answered, swallowing the bile that had risen in his throat.

Scully's face went from slightly concerned to disturbed as she went over to where he was standing, shining her light at the glassy surface of what was in the bucket. She turned closer to him impulsively, trying to shield her senses from the stench of defecation and stomach acid. "Mulder… what the hell is this?"

She couldn't understand.

This was a throwaway case… one of those cases that Mulder resented terribly. A routine homicide that was used by the high brows at the Bureau to distract Spooky Mulder and the enigmatic Dr. Scully from their work at uncovering vast international conspiracies and spending the federal budget for motel rooms in Montana on the trail of Bigfoot and the like.

She had awoken that morning, heading to the office in higher spirits than usual, readying herself for another day of paperwork and mental battles with her partner that ranged from innuendos and pithy jokes to philosophical theories of the universe.

No sooner had her feet crossed the threshold of the cramped basement office when Mulder practically bowled her over. He muttered an apology and waved two tickets to New York City in front of her face moodily. "Another goose chase, Scully."

But, up to her elbows in latex and blood, tweezers in hand and breath coming through her paper mask looking upon the rotund autopsy subject on the cold table, this case had proven that this was no goose chase ten times over.

The mountainous victim had required four orderlies to hoist upon the extra large table and now lay cavernous and disemboweled before her, her findings staggering and utterly vexing.

She hefted the organ in front of her, the size of an overstuffed grocery bag, eight pounds of tissue and flesh. "Mulder… do you know what this is?"

He lifted his eyebrows as a response. "It's a stomach," She said with a long, expelled breath as she put it upon the scale and pulled her mask off. "Stretched to at least four times its normal size. Eight pounds in weight. Mulder… that's nearly impossible."

He took a few steps closer, glancing at the engorged stomach before looking at the man splayed on the table, fat spilling in pools of brackish grease and thick, braided stems. "Are you saying he ate himself to death?"

She shook her head, lips pursed. "No… not directly anyway," He was looking at her, waiting for an explanation.

"Look here," She indicated the upper part of the small intestine, not yet removed from the cavity. There were translucent bands peppered across the tissue. "It's distended. His body tried to compensate for the extra food, taking more food from his stomach into his duodenum than it could really handle. Under normal circumstances, the human brain would tell you to stop eating. It's a simple overload of the system."

"So he was forced?"

She blinked at him. She knew that he already knew that, but clearly he was counting on her, as always, to substantiate his claims. She went to the man's head, lifting it up and indicating the purpled flesh that showed through his thin buzz cut. "Not only do the veins indicate internal hemorrhaging, suggesting great strain, but there are bruises here. Bruises that match up with the tip of a gun."

He let out a long breath, looking around. "Well if he didn't eat himself to death, how did he die?"

She led him to the other side of the body. "He was kicked," She said, pointing out another bloom of black and purple just under his ribcage.

"Kicked?" He clearly didn't understand.

She reached behind her to the counter cluttered with various instruments of surgery, holding a small evidence jar in front of his face. "These were found in the stomach and the large intestine," He took the jar from her, studying the contents. "They're small pellets…PVC from what I can tell. We'll have to run a lab test to be sure, but they were most certainly fed to him." He looked up at her, clearly confused. "Mulder… this man was so engorged, his tissue so strained, that the impact of a kick caused the internal pressure to tear the veins and the bottom of his intestines…" She said, lifting the lower portion of the small intestine to show Mulder the frayed edges. "To literally burst, with help, I have no doubt, from these pellets. This man bled to death Mulder. His insides were literally leaking."

"He literally burst…" She nodded although it wasn't a question. He shook his head, placing the jar back down. "It doesn't make sense, Scully… why the hell would someone go through so much trouble to kill someone? You want someone dead you just drop by and shoot them."

She raised an eyebrow, "You're the authority on that, are you?"

He sighed and assumed the stance of a lecturer, his voice taking on the cadence of a teacher, his eyes alive with possibility. She knew this well. "Scully… there were two receipts in that bag found in the trash can. That means that man had to go out of that house twice to buy more food. This is method and patience that you don't see in a normal murder. He stayed there and fed this man, for how long?"

"Anywhere from seven to twelve hours."

"Seven hours Scully. Seven hours this man stayed in that apartment and washed dishes and cooked spaghetti and held a bucket for the man to vomit in. He could've been caught. He could've been seen leaving the apartment. So much risk just to kill someone so theatrically?"

She slumped her shoulders, her scalp starting to itch from the hairnet. "Isn't it plausible that the killer just wanted to torture a fat, lonely man, Mulder?"

He only looked at her as if she was growing a second head.

"Okay I admit that it's not likely." She relented, smiling slightly despite the grim surroundings, "I agree with you Mulder…" She let out a long breath through her teeth, "There's something more to this case, but what that is, I can't say yet."

"Yeah, well, I'm going back to the crime scene. I feel like I'm missing something. What are you going to do?"

She gave him a look of indignant surprise. "Well I guess I'll stay behind to debrief the chief and the detectives on our findings without you." Her voice dripping with a mixture of sarcasm and exasperation.

He shook his head. "Sorry Scully, I forgot. I've got to go though. You'll do fine."

"Mulder…" There was a warning in her voice. Warning him against his passion. His drive to get inside the killer's head and not be able to pull himself back out.

He turned around as he walked to the doors, giving her a look that told her that he knew what she was warning him against.

But not necessarily a warning he would heed.

The knife scraped easily through the paper tape that sealed the door shut, barring curious neighbors from the crime scene through image and intimidation rather than actual effectiveness.

Mulder pushed the door open and made his way carefully inside, the familiar stench lapping at his senses once again. He checked the lights… still off. He clicked his flashlight to life and walked to the kitchen.

It was as he had last seen it, with the exception of the victim and the removal of key elements of evidence: the grocery bag in the trash can, the bucket of vomit, and the bowl that had served as the victim's pillow. The window had also been closed and sealed.

The place had already been dusted for prints, but they had found none that hadn't belonged to the victim.

He put a hand on the back of the chair, his fingers digging into the hard plastic.

The sight of his purpled, fat face sickened him. All he was doing was giving this man what he so desperately craved. What he had sacrificed his life and soul for and now he cried and blubbered as if he had just stubbed his toe. His tears greased his stupid, slack face as he shoveled another forkful of tinny sauce and overcooked pasta into his mouth, his hands made clumsy with the tight chord about his wrists.

He sat down, the chill of the New York autumn biting through the thin walls and his plush trench.

The man wouldn't die. He pressed the gun harder to the back of his skull as he watched the little muscles in his jaw work to prepare the food for his engorged and sated stomach. All things were equal when staring down the barrel of a gun, he thought with bitter contempt and gross satisfaction.

He let out a shaky breath and shook his head, getting up and crossing to the sink, the cold air sticky with the inhumanity that had occupied this space for a short time.

Slob. This wasn't a home. It was an altar to the slovenly. A shrine to a life given up for food. He scrubbed the pot with the dirty water that sputtered from the faucet as his prisoner retched behind him.

He went over to the shelves of spaghetti sauce, mentally counting them, the gray light throwing odd shadows on the grimy walls.

He couldn't believe it. This man was so gluttonous he had to make a second trip. No matter… he was a patient man. This time he had bought plenty. He had made sure of that.

He stepped in front of the fridge, watching the silver fall of the rain on the window opposite reflect itself on the grease-stained surface.

This was this man's idol… a machine to preserve his precious, edible gods. The same gods who had just killed him. What an awful betrayal, he thought smugly to himself as he looked at the white giant, whirring with a quiet confidence.

He looked down at the grooves at the floor, rough with newness, and grabbed the back of the fridge in sudden realization. Yanking, pulling, and pushing until it had fallen away from the wall.

"For the pernicious sin of gluttony,

I, as thou seest, am battered by this rain

And I, sad soul, am not the only one,

For all these suffer the like penalty

For the like sin," Scully's clear alto voice rang through the office of the chief of police. Among her stood the owner of said office - Chief Jankis - Mulder, and the two detectives- Miles and Shelby- who had been assigned to the case.

"You found that tacked to the wall in back of the fridge, Agent Mulder?" The older one of the detectives, Miles, asked for clarification.

He nodded, taking the paper from her fingers. "Written on the back of the first page of sheet music for 'Nearer My God To Thee'. It looks to have been torn out of a Lutheran hymnal."

"And what is that verse from?" Jankis intoned.

"Dante. The Inferno," Miles answered before Mulder could.

"So what does this mean?" Jankis asked, looking at Mulder and Scully speculatively. He was having a hard time swallowing all of this.

"Sir, Agent Mulder found 'gluttony' written on the wall in grease. This man, the murderer, must be acting under some false sense of purpose. He's making dramatic examples to deliver his twisted thoughts on morality."

The chief shook his head. "I don't understand."

She saw Mulder's hands move in agitated twitches, patience clearly wearing thin. "This man is illustrating his killings, sir… masquerading them as the seven deadly sins: lust, greed, gluttony, etcetera. He may be some religious fanatic, a crusader. A man under a divine delusion. All we know is that he has six more murders to commit." At his last statement the room filled with a pregnant silence. Scully looked at him in both encouragement and pleading.

The chief shifted on his feet as his two detectives glanced back and forth between Mulder and their boss. Jankis' brow grooved with confusion. "But why would he act out his passions like this? Why would he go through such trouble? More importantly, Agent Mulder, how can you be so sure that he will kill again? It seems more likely to me that this man had some personal hatred of the victim's weight… the way he lived… and he wanted to punish him as such."

Mulder took a few steps around the room to calm himself, running a palm over his face before turning to him again. "Sir—"

Scully stepped forward, folding her hands in front of her, saving Mulder from any angry outbursts or incriminating admissions. "Sir, this murder was done with such method and intelligence, it is both my and Agent Mulder's belief that he has resorted to such theatricalities to make an example. He punishes his victim, while also making a show out of him. The M.O. you described doesn't match the violence and execution of the crime," Mulder was looking at her with barely restrained relief. "We have not seen the last of this man, Chief Jankis."

"People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy," The younger detective- Shelby- inserted, in slightly robotic ascent.

"That's all well in good," Jankis began, giving the young detective a pointed look before returning his attention to her and Mulder. "But that doesn't help me catch him. We have no fingerprints, no DNA and a, to put it lightly, very iffy motivation, Agent Mulder."

She saw Mulder's face fall in subtle outrage. "With all due respect sir, you called us to help you with this case and we're doing the best we can. Agent Scully is the one who conducted the autopsy and found the evidence needed to conclude without a shadow of a doubt that it was a homicide in the first place."

Jankis looked at him, a question in his eyes, before ignoring his tirade all together. "You say he will kill again?"

"I'm almost positive."

"Then when will he kill? Who will he target this time?"

Mulder glanced at Scully, "Sir," She began at his silent plea, "There is no way to know. Since we don't know who the killer is, we have no way of knowing if he has any connection to his victims. Upon ID of the body found in the apartment, your detectives here…" She nodded to Miles and Shelby, "Concluded that the man had no family and was a shut in, only ever speaking to the deliveryman from the grocery store. In addition to that, the seven deadly sins have a specific order that this man seems to have disregarded. Lust is first and then avarice, before moving on to gluttony. Either he has already committed the other two murders and we haven't found them yet, or he is killing in random order to keep us guessing, which is what both Agent Mulder and I believe."

Jankis was obviously very confused. He wasn't a stupid man by any means. She didn't think he was confused about the murder, per se, but by something else rather. He seemed troubled as to why he had these two FBI agents standing in front of him, telling him that his killer was fanatic on a deadly crusade. Finally he asked, "Why do you think that?"

"These murders were committed in such a way that it's clear that the killer wants the scenes to be found," Mulder's turn. He was now using his hands in dramatic illustration and emphasis, hoping to force a sense of urgency on this man. "He could've possibly orchestrated the noise that the neighbors called about. He wouldn't go to all this trouble and risk to have what he considers his artwork, his masterpiece, to rot, undiscovered, in some dark building somewhere."

Jankis peered at him under his thick eyebrows before huffing out a breath and turning to the two detectives, who had been standing quietly in the corner throughout this exchange. "Detectives, will you excuse us for a moment?" They traded looks of confusion, but left with nods to her and Mulder, leaving them alone in the spacious office.

The chief sat down behind his desk, his leather chair creaking, before silence and the steady drumming of rain on the window reigned for a short while. Scully tried to catch Mulder's eye as Jankis put a hand over his mouth and crossed his legs, wanting to glean what he thought of the chief's behavior, but he was focused wholly on the man behind the desk.

"Agents, sit down," Jankis finally said, waving a careless hand at the two cheaply upholstered chairs arranged in front of his desk. They hesitated, but settled on the seats simultaneously.

"Agent Mulder, you seem to be under the impression that I want you and your partner here," He held up a hand as Mulder opened his mouth in indignant protest. "Who got you two on this case?"

Mulder leaned back in his chair, brow creased in vexation, looking at Jankis reproachfully. "Well, sir… you did," Scully offered in Mulder's silence, face a reflection his own.

Jankis' wooly eyebrows came together as he shook his head, tapping a nervous finger on his ink blotter. "I did no such thing."

Mulder sat up, hands together in his lap, eyes questioning. She raised an eyebrow. "Sir?"

"Agents… why would I call the feds before a crime had even been committed?"

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_When I'm at the pearly gates_

_This'll be on my videotape, my videotape_

_Mephistopheles is just beneath_

_And he's reaching up to grab me…_

- Radiohead_Videotape_

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**Author's Notes:** First off, I'd love to thank my beta, November, as well as my friends and family, whom I foisted this upon so as they may give me an opinion.

Secondly, let me say that this is based upon the amazing movie _Se7rn_. For those of you who haven't seen it, do it now. For those of you who have, you're probably wondering what the fuck the difference is between my version and the Hollywood version, but trust me, it gets a little off and into my own world. I tried the best I could to not clone it and just replace Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt with Mulder and Scully.

Thirdly, I think I should admit that I am a new phile. So new in fact, I'm only on the fourth season! I have spoiled myself rotten though, but that still doesn't mean that I have everything strait in my brain. My beta probably fixed most of the continuity problems that you might've run into, but some may still be there, so please be nice!

Fourthly... enjoy!


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